A rush to Jemulpo in 1891: Part 2

Ferries cross a river in the early 1900s. Robert Neff Collection

By Robert Neff

• Published Mar 9, 2025 1:36 PM KST
• Updated Mar 10, 2025 11:01 AM KST

With the riverboat gone and their porters refusing to continue to Jemulpo, where their steamship was due to depart the next day, Bishop Daniel A. Goodsell and his wife Sarah faced a dire predicament. Just as things looked impossible, salvation emerged in an unexpected form — curiosity.

An inquisitive elderly gentleman, leaning on a long staff, hobbled toward the procession to get a closer look at the foreign visitors. Introduced as Mapo’s headman, he immediately went into action once the Americans’ predicament was explained.

Goodsell later wrote: “The old man bowed, sent a boy here and a man there; called a pony from a neighboring field; made the bargain; bustled about with amazing activity; apologized for Korean slowness; and, in a half hour, a new pony was loaded, the new bearers at the poles, and we were lifted out of the dreadful stenches and carried to the open river, whose pure breezes seemed like paradise.”

The party soon reached the Han River, which Goodsell noted could swell to an immense 3.2 kilometers in width during the rainy season. On this warm summer day, however, it had receded to a much narrower 300 meters. It was “deep, swift and strong.” Thus, it was, with a great deal of trepidation, that the bishop and his party boarded the three diminutive ferries to convey them across the river. These ferries were “nominally without charge,” though a small fare was commonly expected — if not outright demanded — from strangers, particularly foreigners.

Two unsteady, leaking, worm-eaten boats were tasked to transport the chairs and their bearers, while the last boat was reserved for the pony, his handler and a beggar boy. Although Goodsell failed to mention which boat he and his wife selected, I suspect they elected to forgo their chairs and ride in the comparative safety of the last boat. This decision was not without its own hazards: Korean ponies were notorious for their vile and cantankerous nature, not to mention their alarming propensity to kick and bite anything within reach.

However, trouble arose before they even boarded the ferries. Two of the chair-bearers suddenly began to quarrel which quickly escalated into a fight in “Korean fashion: They seized each other’s topknots and, calling each other the son of a pig and the grandson of a dog, pulled their best.” Goodsell, who was 51 years old and not a violent man, was compelled to intervene. “Knowing that here, as in China, the peacemaker is safe, I had the courage to go between them and pushed them apart. The quarrel ended when the grip was loosed, and we heard no more of it.”

Fortunately for all, the passage across the river was completed without further incident. Goodsell was impressed by the ferrymen’s remarkable skill in navigating the strong current and arriving precisely at the temporary landing on the opposite side of the channel.

Here, however, the true hardship — at least for the Americans — began. Under the blazing sun, they were compelled to walk almost 2 kilometers “across the glaring sand and shining stones of the dry river bed.” Goodsell started out barefoot, but his “feet were burned by the hot sun and hotter sand” forcing him take refuge in one of the chairs. The Korean porters, by contrast, seemed wholly unaffected, traversing the sharp stones and scorching sand with relative ease in their simple straw sandals.

Once the dry riverbed was crossed, they climbed a high riverbank — green with grass — and began what Goodsell described as the “tame enough” journey to Ori-gol, the rest stop frequented by travelers halfway between Jemulpo and Seoul. The bishop vividly recalled:

“Over dikes separating paddy-fields, and through sloughs where dikes ought to be, the laughing, shouting, smoking Koreans bore us, turning out now and then and standing knee-deep in mud while some mandarin in a little Korean chair with two bearers passed us, his guard armed with modern rifles and old matchlocks.”

In the late afternoon, they finally arrived at Ori-gol. A Japanese inn there stood in the center of a walled enclosure. Entering through the large front gate, they found the stable located on one side of the inn while the Korean kitchen was on the other side.

Goodsell was heartily welcomed by the Japanese landlord who was “not too drunk to forget his fine manners, but drunk enough to be ugly to his clean and pretty wife.” The inn’s staff immediately went to work preparing the Goodsells’ rooms: The paper floors were “swept and the nimble fleas brushed out and the American kerosene lamp — universal among the Japanese — was lit.” They then sat down for dinner.

He was quite pleased with the excellent chicken, eggs and rice but the Korean ham he declared to be “execrable.” Only the strawberries Goodsell had brought from Seoul — a gift from the missionaries — managed to compensate “for the venerable effluvium of the ancient ham.”

Another patron at the inn caught Goodsell’s attention — a Korean porter, on his way to Seoul, carrying “an iron bedstead, a mattress, two pillows, two boxes of food, several stone jars.” It was, declared the bishop, “a load heavier than I am,” yet the porter showed no trace of weariness.

As for his own porters and chair-bearers, they were served steamed snowy-white rice in fine brass bowls on little low tables — two men per table. As the men ate, Goodsell went outside to view the sunset. “I recall no more artistic picture than sunset at that inn.”

When he returned inside, he found his men smoking, drinking soju and gambling — this they did until midnight. Afterwards, they stretched out on the floor and fell fast asleep, their loud snores echoing within the confines of the inn. They slept soundly, but Goodsell and his wife had a restless night. “[Though] the fleas had all been swept out, [it was] this noise alone [that] kept us wakeful.”

At last, dawn arrived and after a quick breakfast, Goodsell and his party once again took to the road. The previous day, they had traveled along rough paths, but from the inn to Jemulpo, they utilized a “fairly well-made road.”

They journeyed over low hills and along the edges of rice fields until they finally came to the foot of a very steep pass — it could be avoided by a long detour, but the Goodsells were pressed for time. The path was so steep that all but two of the porters were required to carry Mrs. Goodsell up the twisting road — a noisy babbling brook masked the sounds of the men straining under the weight of their feminine burden. Finally, they reached the top.

From this lofty vantage point, they gazed upon “the valley of the Han, beautiful and mountain-guarded, with higher and rosy peaks beyond.”

Goodsell poetically reflected:

“I saw grander but not more charming landscapes in Japan, and only small spots approaching it in China, and that on the Yangtse near Wuhu; and I have lived to see this same view at Wuhu, and our Methodist Episcopal mission buildings on the promontory there, pictured in the London Graphic as a Chinese Roman Catholic monastery. The different tones of green in these Korean rice fields turned the great valley into a verdant chessboard. Here and there the dirty villages, made decent by distance, punctuated the plain. Far to the east a long line of smoke foretold the incoming steamer. Beneath this, was the glint of the sea.”

However, Goodsell’s blissful appreciation of the stunning scenery was shockingly interrupted when the Korean chair-bearers “carelessly” dropped Mrs. Goodsell and her chair among the stones and the brook as they were nearing the summit. Fortunately, she escaped injury — though, perhaps, not without a loss of modesty and pride.

From the summit, the Goodsell party raced into Jemulpo and arrived at Steward’s Hotel. Its proprietor, Eu Don, was described as “a Chinese Boniface of good English, pleasant manners and [a] preternaturally long queue.” It was from the hotelier that Goodsell learned that missing the river steamer at Mapo had been a fortunate accident. The river steamboats were notorious for groundings and this one was no exception. Shortly after departing Mapo, it ran aground on a sand bank and was unable to free itself for nearly six hours.

The handful of passengers, unable to escape the relentless sun and the infrequent rain showers, huddled on the deck for 12 hours, no doubt regretting their initially perceived good luck in securing passage. Among them was V. Collin de Plancy, a cantankerous French diplomat bound for Yokohama after completing a three-year assignment in Korea as commissaire. Instead of arriving early and well-rested in Jemulpo, he disembarked exhausted and bedraggled, just in time to join the Goodsells aboard the Higo Maru as it set sail for Japan.

Fortunately for all, the journey from Jemulpo to Japan was uneventful, and on June 21, the steamer safely anchored in Nagasaki. Thus ended the Goodsells’ brief adventure in Korea. As for de Plancy, he would return to Korea several years later — just as cantankerous as ever. But that, as they say, is a story for another time.

I would like to thank Diane Nars for her invaluable assistance and for allowing me to use one of her images.

Robert Neff has authored and co-authored several books, including Letters from Joseon, Korea Through Western Eyes and Brief Encounters.